


Behold, a New World

by Trobadora



Category: Coldfire Trilogy - C. S. Friedman
Genre: Gen, post-trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of sacrifices that shook Erna to the core, it's a new world - but no one quite knows its rules. For the man who used to be Gerald Tarrant, that is simply not to be borne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behold, a New World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rekishi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rekishi/gifts).



> When I got my assignment and read your Yuletide letter, I immediately knew I wanted to do something with the part of Tarrant that'd been the Hunter. I hope the result appeals to you! Thank you for the fabulous inspiration.

** Part I **

It wasn't fully dark. The Core had set earlier, only shortly after the sun, but Prima and Domina both lit the sky. Only Casca, the smallest of the moons, remained below the horizon. Still, it was late, and the streets of Sheva were nearly empty as the man who had once been Gerald Tarrant led his unhorse over the cobbled road towards The Neoqueen's Head. Even the tavern ahead was quiet already.

Tarrant stopped abruptly when a man stepped out of a dark alley, pointing a crude gun. He winced, more concerned about an accidentally fired shot than a deliberate hit, but the reaction obviously pleased the thug. A bright smile revealed yellowing teeth.

How inconvenient. A few steps further, and the man's presence would have been unmistakable on the currents. Tarrant was still an adept, after all - human sorcery might not be possible any more, but those born to adeptitude still saw the fae as they always had. He could no longer Work a Knowing, or Search against the currents, but he could observe the ripples as they formed, taste the knowledge as it floated or hurtled along with the natural flow of the fae.

"You just give me your money and your unhorse, pretty boy," the thug demanded, "and I'll even let you walk away all safe."

Tarrant gave the man a stare that was not quite disbelieving. He was quite aware what he looked like: a slender, aristocratic youth in expensive clothing, his long black hair held back by a delicate silver clasp. He looked soft and inexperienced, unprepared for a fight. Even the expensive pistols he carried appeared more like symbols of his status than actual weapons.

An easy target.

Vryce would have laughed.

This simply would not do.

A small, dangerous smile flickered across Tarrant's face as he let go of the unhorse's bridle. It tossed its head nervously but remained close. He'd chosen well; the beast was well-trained.

"Hand it over, boy." The man gestured impatiently with the barrel of his gun, and Tarrant winced again.

The thug obviously thought possessing such a weapon was enough threat; no need to actually be competent in its use.

He wasn't wrong. Guns were more common now that the fae no longer responded to subconscious fears; they weren't likely to misfire simply because their owner feared it. And as rare weapons they seemed far more dangerous than they were.

Tarrant suppressed a sneer. He loathed incompetence.

He took a step forward, directly into the fae flowing from the man. The currents tasted bitter with his intentions, earth fae and dark fae alike carrying them along as they passed him. Images flickered through Tarrant's fae-attuned mind. The man had done worse than this before, with a knife instead of a gun, but found threatening people out of their possessions easier than knifing them. Echoes of blood and death were clinging to him like an oily film.

Loathsome and lazy.

Tarrant's smile turned cruel. A disdainful look flickered up and down the thug's person.

The man made an outraged gesture and repeated his demand.

Tarrant's fingers dug painfully into his unhorse's neck for an instant, eliciting a surprised neigh.

The distraction was enough. Before the thug had caught himself, Tarrant was already in his space, neatly side-stepping a belated attempt to refocus the gun on him, and had the weapon out of the man's hand in another instant, the mugger's arm twisted uncomfortably against his back.

The man yelped, painfully. _Good._ He twisted the man's elbow a little harder.

"Should I break it?" he asked, cold satisfaction in his voice.

Not long ago he would have killed the man without a second thought, but his association with Reverend Vryce had served to curtail that impulse. And he was still trying to find out just where he stood on the issue of mercy. It was no longer forbidden to him, but he had suppressed it for so long he hardly knew what it felt to be moved to it any more.

Either way, the thug wouldn't get away easily.

For a moment Tarrant almost regretted not being able to feel the man's fear, not being able to feed on it.

~*~

Vryce would call him a fool, Tarrant thought as he left the outskirts of Sheva and rode towards the nexus of power that had been his home for centuries: the Forest, or what was left of it after the Church's faithful had burnt it down. Vryce would call the whole idea preposterous. The word _hubris_ would feature prominently in his lecture, anger insufficiently covering genuine concern.

But Tarrant had to know.

Not even to prepare for the future. The world had changed, and his own sacrifice had part in it. He wanted to know what exactly he had wrought, what pattern his sacrifice and the subsequent one by the Church's Patriarch had inscribed on the fae.

He needed to _know_, with the same desperate urgency that had once driven him to seek a compact with the Unnamed itself, sacrificing his wife and children and every mortal thing he'd held dear, just to see what his great project would come to.

The Church.

It was still _his_, even after nine hundred years. He needed to know what the new pattern would mean for it. Did the fae still respond to the human mind at all, aside from those Workings performed in self-sacrifice that the new Pattern allowed for? What was the power of faith, now? Could it still impress itself on the fae? Could it - for example - still keep the cathedral of Jaggonath standing, fortified against the earthquakes by the prayers of the faithful? Or would that, too, fail now, as the quake wards on profaner buildings eventually must?

Most people cared little, now that the immediate danger of fae-born demonlings had been removed. They acted as if the fae no longer concerned them; as if it had become irrelevant.

Was it truly possible for life on Erna to be untouched by it? Tarrant doubted it. Subconscious fears and hopes might no longer spring to life as fully-formed nightmare creatures ready to feed on the living, but the fae was everywhere. How could there be no interaction?

It was a new world, but it was not Earth, and it never would be.

He must _know_, never mind the danger of the experiment. He was far more worried that nothing at all would happen. Danger was far more welcome than that.

Excitement rushed through Tarrant as he contemplated his planned - _dangerous, suicidal_, Vryce's voice added in his head - experiment.

~*~

Tarrant suppressed a shudder when he reached the site. The Forest had burnt out completely - the ecosystem he had carefully crafted over centuries was destroyed, the charred skeletons of the most resilient trees standing as lifeless reminders. His keep had been laid to ruin; nothing was left but crumbling, smoke-blackened stone and scorched earth.

But that wasn't why he was here.

Even as far away as Kale, the nexus of wild fae concentrated here was very nearly overwhelming to an adept's senses, a bright dark sun of wild power toward which everything flowed, everything was drawn. Dark fae and earth fae formed a whirlpool of such proportions it might have drowned the continent had it not drawn everything into it, allowing little of its power to radiate outwards.

Even that little was blinding.

Here in Jahanna itself, it hurt even Tarrant's senses.

The Forest he had cultivated here, harnessing and channelling its force, had been razed, but the power spot remained, a savage and untamed place.

Burning it down had merely burnt away the control.

Tarrant could see it clearly - the ceaseless turmoil of the currents, a seething mess of raw power spilling over the ground, every now and then thrown up into a massive wave or burst, raining down again on the earth, pounding it with scorching force. He couldn't Work with what he saw, but his senses were intact: sight and hearing, smell and taste, the prickling of his skin at the touch – the marvellous cacophony of a world alive.

And he had come here to see.

He might not be able to Work any more, but he remembered the lesson well: sometimes, you had to give yourself over to the fae. Sometimes, you had to surrender.

And he _needed to know_.

Where better than here, in the midst of all that power? If anywhere, it was here - for what was the meaning of surrender if it held no danger?

So Tarrant had gone to the most dangerous place he knew, short of Mount Shaitan itself.

He sat on the charred ground, closed his eyes and let himself feel nothing but the fae - the roar of the impossibly strong fae-tide very nearly sweeping his small human mind away, and nothing, nothing to hold on to, no Working to keep him tied to his body. He'd be lost if he let go, and every muscle in his body clenched with the knowledge. He pressed his palms to the ground, feeling earth fae swirling around him, a vortex of eddies, infinitely complex, infinitely strong ...

... and he let go, letting it sweep him away, giving up, giving in.

It was as terrifying as it had been the first time, but he had plenty of practice, having travelled with Vryce and Hesseth for so long, shapechanging every day. After a while, they'd forgotten it wasn't a routine Working. After a while, even Vryce had forgotten why humans weren't supposed to be able to perform this kind of transformation. And Tarrant had certainly preferred it that way; no need for them to know what it had cost him, every time.

Now, he was swept away with the currents, a dizzying rush as he was hurled around, a twig thrown randomly into a wild stream, feeling everything, feeling it all ...

... but there were no answers. The power felt to him as it always had, dark and dangerous, a wellspring drenching him in eerie energy and at the same time a void pulling at him, pulling him in. Nothing answered back; nothing responded, nothing reacted, and in a moment he'd be completely lost ...

Despair and terror warred with the still deeper need for answers, and he tamped down on his impulse to struggle futilely against the tides. Let the fae have its way with him, now; if he didn't fully try he would never know.

But still it offered no answers, the tide sweeping him along but not reacting otherwise, not telling him what he needed to know, not showing reaction to a human mind.

For what seemed like an eternity he simply tumbled, helplessly, through the whirlpool, lost ...

… and then he was slammed back into his body with enough force to throw him to the ground, sending up a cloud of ashy dust that invaded his eyes, his lungs, his nose.

Tarrant coughed, tears running down his ash-streaked face, and he wiped ineffectually at his eyes with hands that were no cleaner. He shuddered, revulsion fed by deeply-ingrained fastidiousness and vanity overwhelming him with a desperate craving for the instantly-available cleanliness of his previous life, all the more powerful for its helplessness. Reflexively, nine hundred years of habit taking over, his mind shaped the now-futile sigils of a Working -

\- and the power coursed through him, coldfire sweeping over him, cleaning, cleansing -

\- and Gerald Tarrant blinked in confusion at his now very clean clothes, smelling of fresh laundry, and his skin, soft as if from a recent bath.

Around him, the whirlpool of power continued to roar, unchanged.

~*~

Tarrant got to his feet slowly. Cautiously he constructed the pattern of a minor Knowing in his mind, tamping down on his excitement, on the adrenal rush, and reached out ...

... and nothing, nothing happened at all.

~*~

He sank to the ground again and forced himself to think. What had happened?

He recalled as best he could the moment just before the Working had unexpectedly taken hold: how he'd felt, what he'd thought ...

Clumsily, his inexperience all too apparent to him, he tapped into parts of his mind he generally preferred to keep under rigorous control, focusing on the most basic of needs until their urgency was all that filled his mind.

Hunger and thirst.

Not for sustenance; for knowledge.

Again, he attempted to Work a Knowing - just a gentle nudge to the fae, nothing more, but imbued with all his urgency - his intellectual curiosity and questioning, the observing part of his mind completely set aside ...

... and immediately, eagerly, a whole tide of information flooded back to him.

He reeled back, shocked.

_Hesseth_, he thought.

He had spoken very little to the rakh woman, and she had told him little of her own people's ways of Working the fae, but from what he had gathered, their use of the tidal fae depended on conveying need, much as any native species' need impressed itself on the fae and altered them or the world so that their needs might be met.

_Not will, but need ..._ It was starting to become clear in his mind, and he wondered ...

That was the moment when he realised he was hungry - and not for human food.

It was not quite the gnawing hunger he'd felt several times on their long journey after foregoing sustenance for too long, but it was definitely here: the craving for another person's terror.

The Hunter's hunger.

After nine hundred years it had become a part of him, and the physical changes had not removed the psychological need. The fae had found it deeply ingrained into his subconscious, and reawakened it.

He must feed.

~*~

Fear was easy to find in any city, especially at night. Not quite as easy as it had been when the mere fact of darkness had been enough to scare grown men out of their wits, knowing what was about to come - but night held other dangers, after all. Sheva was no exception. Tarrant could taste it on the currents, from several directions at once, some stronger, some weaker ...

And there: the rush of terror sweeping towards him on the currents was almost intoxicating. Tarrant followed its lure and was not surprised at all when it led him behind a tavern where a bulky man was pushing a slim slip of a girl against a wall.

_Amateur_, Tarrant thought disdainfully. But the fear welling up from the girl was exquisite, a treat denied him for too long.

Running on pure instinct and several lifetimes' worth of habit, his hunger wove the earth fae into a channel, drawing the girl's fear towards him, a delicious rush of pleasure overtaking him.

For the longest time he simply stood, cloaked in the shadows, watching and feeding, the intoxicating sweetness of the girl's terror rushing through him.

Then the voice at the back of his head - the one that sounded suspiciously like Vryce - became too insistent to ignore, and he stepped forward, pistol in hand.

It didn't take much to scare the man away, and his fear was pleasure too, a different flavour than he was used to but no less sweet.

He shook off the girl's gratitude and retreated without another word, feeling strangely unsettled.

~*~

Perhaps, he thought later as he left Sheva towards Mordreth with his hunger sated, it was only because he had been right on top of such a wellspring of power that those strange, alien Workings had been possible at all. Perhaps further away from this place it would be impossible.

He tried it out, outside what had been the borders of Jahanna; in various daes along the way; in the dismal dreariness of Mordreth; and across the Serpent in Kale, where he stopped.

It was the same.

~*~

These things came easy to him: feeding and cleansing. Basic needs, easily pulled out, easily impressed on the fae.

But beyond that?

He tried to Work a Knowing, with or against the current, countless times, unsuccessfully.

Nor could he manage a Remembering, despite knowing too well the consequences of a civilisation forgetting its past.

But when a small band of half-starved demonlings attacked him, coldfire flared up without hesitation in his defence.

~*~

_Rakh-Workings_, he thought afterwards, with horror, _I'm using rakh-Workings._

Sheer revulsion clenched his stomach, convulsed his throat.

He was no better than they, like this: savage beasts depending on primitive urges, never mind that they did possess a will, a consciousness higher than that.

Vryce would have called it a fitting punishment for his hubris.

Tarrant shuddered.

No; Vryce was a man of the Church and would realise the implications. They came from the same tradition, after all.

Humanity, another step closer to being subjugated by the fae, to becoming another Ernan species after all. They might never reach the stars again, their birthright, their Earth heritage - the Church's very goal.

What had they done?

Humanity had been saved from uncontrollable interaction with the fae, but at what price?

Or perhaps it was only adepts who related to the fae now on the same terms as local species did.

No. The seed of it was present in all humans here. Adeptitude might only manifest rarely, but humans were - or had been - capable of perceiving the fae with only their own brain as a tool: a difference in degree, not in kind.

Tarrant would have liked nothing better than to force these thoughts out of his mind, but the luxury of self-delusion was one he rarely allowed himself.

Better to face the truth.

For the first time, he wished he could have found the time - or the interest - to investigate the rakh more thoroughly.

~*~

From a grey and dreary inn in Mordreth, Tarrant sent several letters to adepts the Hunter had been in sporadic contact with. He signed with an alias they would be familiar with, the same alias he had used long ago to establish accounts at several local banks. These funds were rather useful now.

Other adepts were his best bet of spreading the knowledge, alerting them to his discovery, the newfound possibilities of the fae. It was a small thing that would hardly stem the tide, but it was a beginning.

It was hardly altruistic. The collapse of civilisation would affect him as much as anyone. Without Healing, without quake wards, without Rememberings, too much was in danger, and not even he was arrogant enough to believe himself beyond that.

Still, Vryce would have approved. One good - or at least not-exclusively-selfish - deed at a time.

~*~

In Kale, Tarrant took residence in one of the better inns. Time to stop for a while; time to make some decisions.

He'd turned everything over in his mind countless times as he'd practised and strained against the limitations of his newfound abilities. How did one go about conveying need when one's brain was quite aware how little one actually _needed_ anything save for what sustained the body?

What was ahead was grim; he'd known that almost immediately after the Patriarch's sacrifice had imprinted on the fae, solidifying the new Pattern. Losing access to sorcery would be every bit as devastating as losing their technology had been to the Earth settlers, over twelve hundred years ago. With their heritage and knowledge destroyed, their civilisation had crumbled, and humanity had descended into darkness for long centuries.

Now, people were still rejoicing at being safe from the manifestations of the fae and hadn't given thought to what would happen when the old Workings failed. No wards, though they were less necessary now, with fewer and fewer fae-born creatures to ward from. No more Worked objects, not even a simple firelighter, once the ones already Worked had been used up. And while there would be no new demonlings to attack humans and feed on them, neither would there be Healers. Knowledge of the inner workings of the body was useless without the ability to apply it. Tarrant was sure that eventually technology would be developed to replace at least some of the tools they had lost, but that would take time. What would be left standing by the end of it?

In the mean time, people would die, and the very cities would crumble. This planet was subject to heavy tectonic activity, earthquakes a frequent threat. On this continent, most houses were held up by sorcery - quake wards fortifying their structure. In the end, they would fail.

Yes, Earth technology would now work reliably, but where should it come from? How was it supposed to replace everything lost, with nowhere to manufacture it in sufficient quantity even where the methods were known? How was new medical technology supposed to come about when there wasn't anything to draw on?

And how much knowledge would be lost, simply because it couldn't be practically applied right now?

There were no more Rememberings, after all.

Knowledge had to be preserved; that was one very urgent priority. It had been what Tarrant had been committed to, before his discovery.

Now, there was another priority: learning how to use the fae again, so that they might prevent a complete collapse, or at least lessen its impact.

What they needed was - as much as it galled Tarrant to admit it - rakh knowledge.

He shuddered. The rakh would certainly not be willing to share. They hated humans, and with good reason after the pogroms of the dark ages that had driven them to hide their remaining lands under the Canopy, a dome of fae produced by their desperate need for safety.

_The lady Ciani_, he thought. _She would know._

Ciani of Faraday was the only human who had ever successfully approached the rakh. As far as Tarrant knew, she was still with them - studying the rakh had been her life's work, and she understood them better than anyone.

There was certainly no hope that _he_, of all people, could manage to gain their trust. His ingrained revulsion would be too apparent to the creatures. But approaching Ciani was a possibility.

He could no longer claim his old identity, though - could not reveal himself to her. Why would she share anything with a random stranger?

But there was someone else - someone he could approach who in turn could then vouch for him with the lady.

Damien Vryce.

~*~

It was easy to find fear, even without inducing it himself, and if he fed frequently enough that seemed to be quite enough to satisfy his hunger.

That made some sort of sense, he supposed. It wasn't needed to sustain his body, and there was no compact requiring anything of him. It was only his own hunger, something that had become essential to him while he had been the Hunter, something so deeply ingrained it had been easy for the fae to bring it to the fore again.

This sort of feeding on stale second-hand terror wasn't nearly as satisfying as a Hunt, of course, but Tarrant wasn't quite willing to turn to that merely to satisfy his gourmet tastes. He remembered a time when sadism hadn't been a part of him.

And he knew what Vryce would say, how he would rail against the very thought, and not merely for the victims' sake. _You've been given a second chance_, Tarrant imagined Vryce saying. _Don't throw it away._

And: _The quality of the One God is Mercy._

The Prophet's own words - Tarrant's own words, inscribed in the basic principles of the Church he had founded when he'd been alive, the Church Vryce still believed in.

He remembered his own shame and horror at the manifestation of divinity Vryce had called, during their long journey, the terrible knowledge of a Prophet unable to face his God.

Was there a way back for him? He didn't know.

He didn't know.

~*~

There had been a channel between them - a full channel, established in that last day before they'd expected to die trying to defeat Calesta. A connection between them, a way of least resistance to the fae, a mental bridge.

_Only death can sever that kind of link_, he remembered explaining to Vryce, _and sometimes not even that._

And they were both alive.

Tarrant's eyes narrowed. Perhaps ...

Cautiously, he probed at a part of his mind he hadn't actually felt since his first death at the hand of the Iezu Mother.

~*~

** Part II **

Damien Vryce stalked into his room and sat down heavily on the chair by the window. Another futile debate; another wasted day. People weren't ready to think about the negative side effects of their deliverance from the dangers of the fae; they weren't listening.

And he lacked influence. He was no longer a priest, no longer a reverend of the Church.

What was he even doing here in Jaggonath?

Damien sighed. The truth was that he wasn't certain where to turn.

His old life was gone; there was no returning to it. He'd been a priest and a sorceror; the first he'd given up for the sake of fighting Calesta, and the latter had been taken from him when the world had changed - something he'd prayed for, and yet he'd never imagined it to be like this.

He'd give it all again gladly for a world that might be made predictable, a world where technology worked and humanity could develop in peace, not constantly assailed by physical manifestations of any subconscious fear, any nightmare they might have. But he'd always imagined it as a gradual process, not ... this.

Every time he walked the streets, his eyes moved from quake ward to quake ward, wondering how much of this would still be standing a year, five years, ten years from now. And from his window he could see the Cathedral, held up not by sorcery but by the prayers of the faithful. Was even that secure? Not even that much was certain now.

How much human civilisation had come to depend on the fae, even as it had been threatened by it! Only with it gone did Damien truly recognise the extent.

He felt like the ground had vanished from beneath his feet.

Since his return to Jaggonath, Damien had spent his days attempting to impress the dangers on the men and women of influence in the city, but few listened, and even those who did were full aware there was little to be done.

It was an exercise in futility, all of it. And he felt doubly at sea now, after years in relentless pursuit of a single goal.

More than once he'd half made up his mind to return to his own homeland, but still he remained.

Perhaps he simply dreaded having to stand before the Matriarch and explain to her what had happened. How could he even begin to describe it, or his own part in it?

_I met the Prophet_, he imagined saying. _The Prophet of our faith, still alive after a thousand years. He was a thing of evil, corrupted to the core. And yet I allied with him, for the power he could provide, and allowed him into my very soul. I turned my eyes away when he committed terrible deeds. I sustained him when he needed it, defended him with my own life. All in the name of defeating a demon a thousand times worse, which he in the end sacrificed himself to kill. I'd like to imagine he managed to redeem himself with that, or at least bought the chance for redemption. And while we were doing that, the Patriarch of the Eastern Autarchy led a crusade against his stronghold and defeated it, sacrificing himself as well. Now their combined sacrifices have altered the fae forever._

It was too much; how could anyone who hadn't been there grasp the import of it all?

At least he had the comfort of knowing Tarrant wasn't truly dead, that he was still out there carving out a new life, free of his terrible compact with the Unnamed. Still out there and still able to gain redemption, as much as that was possible after centuries of horrors perpetrated without a single regret.

Not much of a comfort, actually - to know he was there but untouchable was almost harder than believing him dead and safely in God's hands.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder if Tarrant, too, was floundering in this new world, unsure what to do.

Damien smiled to himself. It was hard to imagine Tarrant unsure of anything; it might do the man good.

~*~

It flared.

A hot knife of power seared him from the inside - a touch intimately familiar and yet utterly strange for lack of the chill that had always accompanied it before.

_Tarrant._

Images, thoughts, memories flooded Damien's mind - every brush of Tarrant's mind against his, every Knowing rifling through his brain, every time he'd given himself over to the Hunter since the beginning of their strange alliance, when they'd been mortal enemies still.

_That first choice to feed him, establishing a channel for life because Tarrant needed sustenance and he needed Tarrant's help._

_Allowing the Hunter to control him, body and soul, giving everything into his hands, in order to deceive and defeat the Master of Lema. He lived it again vividly, feeling the Hunter's vile essence fill him, welcoming it into his body._

_Each of the many, terrible nightmares on their long voyage, more and more often not even fighting the fear, instead letting himself fall into it, offering it up to his companion like a pagan might offer a sacrifice to a fae-born godling._

_Going into Hell itself to save Tarrant from a fate more than well-deserved, knowing what the Church would think of such a thing. Leaving that very Church to continue on with Tarrant on a journey on which he wasn't even needed, simply because Gerald had asked._

_Practically begging him to establish a true bond by completing what they'd started, back with that first feeding, welcoming the Hunter into his very soul - a permanent, undissolvable bond._

And then it was over, and Damien panted harshly, trying to sort memory from sensation, trying to be sure what he had just felt.

The channel.

He'd thought it gone, with Tarrant's death and rebirth at the hands of the Iezu Mother. He certainly hadn't felt it since.

But this -

Cold dread shuddered through him.

Tarrant had been human. What he'd felt across the channel was something else. Not the Hunter, not quite - not his coldness, his inhumanity - but definitely the Hunter's hunger. And Gerald's familiar presence, unmistakable and comforting, a terrible contradiction.

For a moment he questioned his sanity. Was he becoming delusional? Was he _dreaming_?

The worst of it was how glad he was, just for that short connection to Tarrant, even with the inexplicable return of a hunger that should have well and truly died with his old self.

Bile rose in his throat as he looked at himself as the Church would see him: tainted by the Hunter, corrupted by his willing participation in an act so vile it almost defied description, opening his soul to the demonic - a former priest dragged down to the lowest level a human could sink, the willing submission to Evil itself.

He remembered that once he had thought Ciani tainted, merely by the fact of having learned from the Hunter. He'd thought of a darkness clinging to her, forever, and he'd recoiled from it.

How far had he strayed from that certainty, that purity?

But it was worth it. He couldn't doubt that. It had all been worth it.

Even Gerald, by himself, was worth it.

After all, what was the Church's faith without the possibility of redemption? Even for one who had fallen as far as Gerald had.

And yet ... What had happened to Gerald, to awaken that terrible hunger again? Surely he wouldn't simply go back to the unlife he had led, before Calesta had interrupted nine hundred years of evil with something worse. Surely ...

Damien swallowed convulsively.

He tried to shake the thought, but his mind wouldn't relent. Knowing he couldn't seek answers, knowing he could never approach Gerald without endangering him, all he had was speculation - hope and fear.

~*~

Damien woke with a gasp and sat up reflexively, breathing heavily. The sheets were tangled around his body, clammy with cold sweat. It took him several moments to calm his heartbeat and reassure himself that it had only been a dream.

A nightmare.

Still, he got out of bed and went to stand at the window for several minutes, drinking in the reassuring sight of the Cathedral, standing tall, untouched.

For now.

He shivered again, and it wasn't only the sweat drying on his bare skin.

He'd had a similar vision before, induced by the Hunter at the time. Then, his utter helplessness had come as a shock. This time it was an anticipated dread, which somehow made it all the worse. Back then, it hadn't been a real threat. Then, he hadn't been staring at a very plausible future.

Then, it had been a distant Earth battlefield, not the streets of Jaggonath.

Still, he hadn't had a nightmare as bad as this since ...

Suddenly, with utter, furious certainty, he knew.

_Damn you, Tarrant._

The Hunter had never fed on him without his consent before.

Even knowing that that aspect of the man was still - or once again - alive, he hadn't even _thought_ things might have changed between them, that Tarrant would no longer observe ...

_What were you thinking? He's the _Hunter_. Without a common enemy, his true nature comes out_, a bitter part of him thought.

His fist clenched. If the man were here right now, he'd punch him. But he wasn't.

Damien went back to bed, and it was a long time until he fell asleep, his anxiety and fury overlaid with a strange kind of craving.

When sleep finally came, his dreams were peaceful, and no one invaded his mind.

~*~

For three days, nothing more happened. Damien found himself growing irritable, twitchy, and starting to examine every unexpected emotion, wondering what would happen next, when and how Tarrant's presence would make itself known again.

When it came, he almost didn't notice.

On the morning of the fourth day, he looked out of his window, and suddenly the room and the street and the very city grated on his skin. He needed to get out. He needed to leave this place. He'd go north, perhaps ... yes, north, to Kale. That felt right.

He jerked in surprise.

That wasn't _his_ desire.

If he'd felt like leaving this place, his path would have led him to the west, across the Dividers and back to his own homeland. Not towards Kale again, the direction of the Forest, where after all he'd come from only a little while ago.

It shouldn't be possible, but it felt exactly like a Calling, as if someone had Worked the fae to pull him in that direction. It made no sense, just like the channel itself, which was a fae construct, after all.

Damien hesitated. But what other option did he have? And there was nothing here for him in Jaggonath.

Cursing the inexplicable, irrational _hope_ welling up in him, he bid good-bye to his landlady, saddled his unhorse and left Jaggonath, glad to have even a temporary goal ahead of him once more.

~*~

** Part III **

When the inn's door opened again, Tarrant didn't need to look up to see who had just entered. He'd positioned himself carefully within the room, making sure the currents from the doorway flowed straight towards him, carrying knowledge with them.

Only when the new arrival approached his table and plunked down his pack with an irritable gesture did he lift his head.

Vryce looked simultaneously better and worse than when last he'd seen him. He'd obviously found time to rest - the bone-deep weariness left behind after their four-year-long journey had fallen away -, but there were dark circles under his eyes nonetheless, and the currents around him spoke of worry and fear of the future, a fear Tarrant would have found far sweeter if he hadn't shared it himself.

The man was looking at him as if he couldn't decide which question to ask, which accusation to level first. Certainly Tarrant had given him quite a few of those, just with the three brief instances he'd managed to Work a contact between them.

"Well?" Vryce finally spat out, opting for none of them and all of them in one go.

Tarrant allowed himself a thin smile. "I appreciate that you came," he said calmly. "Sit."

Vryce grimaced. "I'm not a dog," he complained. But he did sit, one of the corners of his mouth turning up, probably despite himself. Another brief hesitation; then: "You didn't introduce yourself, last time."

Tarrant nodded in acknowledgment. Vryce had his priorities right. He wouldn't launch into any of the more sensitive topics without knowing where they stood on that very basic question. After all, Tarrant had explained to him on their last meeting, very circumspectly, that he couldn't reclaim his former identity without endangering his very existence.

But that was outdated knowledge.

"You know my name quite well, and it'll do, for you."

Vryce stared. "You told me ..."

"I am aware. But the channel between us is intact."

"Speak clearly, man!"

"I can't reclaim my old identity, but neither can I deny my own knowledge of who I was, who I still am - a soul's identity, which runs deeper than any outward trappings, be they hellish or human. Neither could you. That the channel still binds our souls together means that on that level at least, it circumvents the terms of my sacrifice."

Vryce took a moment to digest this. "You're truly sure."

"Do I look like a man who would endanger himself needlessly for such a thing?" Tarrant replied testily.

Vryce actually grinned now. "What you mean is, you were wrong."

Tarrant glared at him. That didn't even merit an answer.

"Gerald," Vryce said, quietly. Almost gently.

Tarrant turned away from it, and perhaps it was this that reminded Vryce of who he was dealing with, or perhaps the moment had simply passed, but when he looked back, Vryce's eyes stormed with fury.

"Are you the Hunter again?"

Tarrant met his gaze calmly. "Not here, Vryce."

~*~

He led the former priest to his room, Vryce glaring at him the whole way. When they were sitting at the small table, Vryce repeated himself: "Are you the Hunter again, Gerald?"

"I could be." Cool, measured tones. It would only serve to infuriate the man further, of course - but at this point, he considered that a perk.

"How is that possible? You're free of your compact with the Unnamed. You were entirely human. And now you're not? _Please_ tell me you weren't stupid enough to make another pact."

Tarrant narrowed his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous." He pressed his lips together for an instant, then explained, somewhat testily: "The Unnamed may have begun the process, but I am what I made myself into. Did you imagine all that might be undone simply by breaking the compact, that I would be miraculously freed from the consequences of my own actions? Life is seldom that convenient, Vryce."

It had been, for as long as it lasted. But the grace that had granted him a reprieve from death and damnation had not cleansed him of what he'd spent centuries shaping himself into.

Vryce glared at him for another moment, then said harshly, "Not that you'd have deserved it. To have nearly a thousand years of evil wiped clean by a single moment of sacrifice? You're right; that _would_ have been too convenient."

Tarrant might have objected, but he also knew the former priest had prayed for just that: for mercy and redemption for the Hunter. Probably still did pray for it.

"Anyway," Vryce continued, "that's not an answer. How?"

"It was ... a side effect of an experiment," Tarrant finally admitted. "I needed to See, to find out what was happening to the fae now, and in opening myself to it, it reawakened something in me."

"Oh. It wasn't deliberate, then?"

Tarrant could see how important that was to the man.

"Unexpected," he admitted, "but not ... entirely unwelcome."

There was no mistaking the thunderbolt of anger flashing through the channel between them.

Tarrant hesitated. Then: "You must understand. When I made that compact, I was willing to do whatever it took to survive, any violence, any cruelty. But I had no taste for it; that didn't come until later. It was merely a tool. If another way had been available, I'd have preferred it, then." He fixed Vryce with a stare, deliberate, calm. "Not any more."

Tarrant could see Vryce's thoughts clearly on his face. He was all but shivering from the coldness of Tarrant's words, and having trouble, once again, reconciling that inhuman attitude with Tarrant's other side, the man who'd founded the Church, the same man who'd freely given his life, even knowing what Hell he was facing, to save the world.

Tarrant approved. He'd always appreciated that Vryce didn't suffer under any delusions as to his nature.

"Is that why you sent me that nightmare?" Vryce asked. "Just because you _liked_ it? You never did that before." Vryce's voice held a clear challenge.

"Incentive," Tarrant said coolly. "To bring you here. And to make the current situation clear to you. I won't pretend to be otherwise than I am."

Too confrontational, perhaps? - No; sometimes Vryce needed to be pushed. Better to provoke him to anger and control the situation than to wait for it to spill out at an inopportune moment.

And if Vryce couldn't accept the situation - better to know it now.

Something in Tarrant ran ice-cold at the thought, but he refused to allow himself to shiver.

"So what now?" Vryce challenged. "You simply return to what you were? You're _free_, Gerald - you don't need to. You have a chance ..."

A chance to redeem himself. Yes, if such a thing was possible. But ...

"I do require fear to sustain myself, and human suffering."

"Gerald," Vryce whispered, his voice rough, helpless.

"You swore to kill me once, when this all was over, or at least to attempt it. Now it is, and unlike before, I'm not simply human any more. Isn't it time for you to fulfil your promise?" Tarrant looked at him, not quite ready to analyse the indescribable emotion contracting his stomach.

Vryce's fist clenched.

Tarrant wasn't unsympathetic to the former priest's struggles. Vryce's Church morality was, after all, of his own shaping, and he still shared it to a surprising degree considering what he had become.

He knew Vryce had long accepted his complicity, the responsibility he shared for every one of the Hunter's kills - but there had been no choice then, not if Calesta was to be defeated, not if humanity was to be saved from something far worse than the Hunter could ever be. Tarrant had always appreciated Vryce's practicality.

This was different. There was no necessity now.

There was just Tarrant and his terrible need, just Vryce and his terrible guilt.

By all rights, he _should_ kill Tarrant. Or at least attempt it.

"No," Vryce rasped. "No."

Tarrant suppressed a flicker of surprise.

"The worst of it," Vryce whispered harshly, "is that even now I'm glad. I'm glad that you're alive, and I could never wish otherwise. What kind of a man does that make me?"

Tarrant considered that for a moment. "A friend," he decided finally. Despite everything, and impossible as it seemed, the word was appropriate.

Vryce's eyes met his, and the channel between them blew wide open under the onslaught of the former priest's emotions. It all rolled over Tarrant within an instant: Vryce's reawakened horror at Tarrant's hunger - the fear for Tarrant's soul - the despair over the loss of his all-too-briefly regained humanity - the bone-deep knowledge that he'd never consider turning away from him even so ...

And Tarrant knew, without a doubt, that this was the hardest thing Vryce had ever done: to acknowledge all of that in himself.

Vryce blinked, slowly, and belatedly it occurred to Tarrant to wonder just what the other man had seen across the channel.

"You'll find another way," Vryce said with a terrible conviction Tarrant almost couldn't contemplate. "Won't you?"

Tarrant smiled, humourlessly. "As I said, it's an acquired taste." Not that he had any idea how to even begin to undo such a thing. "But until then?" He knew his own despair was leaking through; with the discipline of nine hundred years he suppressed it. But he knew very well that what he'd been doing since his discovery was not a path that led anywhere good.

"Until then, you do what you have to." There was resolution in Vryce's voice, and something in Tarrant lightened at the words. The former priest's steadfastness had always been a comfort. "It'll do, for now."

~*~

"So," Vryce finally asked, "just how am I here?"

"I Worked a Calling," Tarrant stated calmly.

Vryce stared at him. He must be aware of that fact; he'd followed the Calling, after all, and he was experienced enough to recognise when he was being led by the fae. He'd chosen to respond. And yet he stared at him with apparent incomprehension. "It's not possible to Work any more," he finally said.

"Not as we knew it," Tarrant admitted and proceeded to inform Vryce of what he'd discovered.

When he'd finished, Vryce sat stunned for the longest time. "You idiot!" he finally burst out. "What the vulk possessed you to put yourself in such danger? Must you always go after the most dangerous knowledge available?"

Tarrant smiled at the utterly expected reproach. "Are you surprised?"

"Not a bit," Vryce admitted, the corners of his mouth twitching. "It's typical for you." He sighed. "So let me see if I understand this correctly. We're talking about something fundamentally different from the way we used the fae before."

"Allowing yourself to become part of the fae cycle," Tarrant specified.

"Which may be very well for the rakh, but I wouldn't have thought humans were even capable of that kind of ... self-abnegation, not outside very extreme circumstances."

Tarrant nodded, impressed. "Ah. I see your brain is not completely going to waste. You've hit upon the major difficulty. I can't imagine that very many people will manage it, no."

"You of all people - Gerald, you're the proudest man I know. Hell, you're a control freak. How could you ever manage something like this?"

"They said no human could master shapechanging, either," he reminded Vryce. "It's a very similar thing, I've found."

He held Vryce's eyes, and with a slow, deliberate gesture he brushed a hand over his clothes, a small flare of coldfire smoothing out wrinkles and brushing away any lint. His almost obsessive need for cleanliness was definitely an asset now, he thought sardonically, even as it had made for some exceptionally uncomfortable times on his journeys with Vryce.

Tarrant watched closely, and so he witnessed the precise moment Vryce realised what he was seeing. Sorcery, yes - but not just any Working, not the kind a man might be willing to risk and sacrifice for: something completely frivolous, a mere whim, an extravagant gesture of purely aesthetic value.

Something so trivial, and it was the most miraculous thing of all.

"You can Work." Vryce swallowed and stared at him, his anger momentarily derailed by sheer awe.

"Yes."

"You can really Work."

"You already said that, Vryce."

"I'm sure that wasn't what the Patriarch was hoping for."

"Of course it wasn't," Tarrant replied sardonically. "But they never _think_, before they tamper with the fae. They didn't listen to me then, and they didn't listen to anyone this time. The result is, as always, unpredictable, and not what they set out to achieve. Of course not, with this ... amateurish meddling." He was quite aware his tone was one of supreme arrogance; rightfully so. If any man could be considered an expert on the fae, it was he.

"Could anyone have foreseen that, though?"

"No," Tarrant had to admit. "I doubt it. Either way, this is what we're stuck with. This is what we have to deal with, now." He looked away. "And don't mistake me. Yes, I _can_ Work, to some degree, but what you saw just now probably gave a false impression. I'm barely capable of anything that doesn't involve very basic human needs. I haven't yet succeeded at Working a Remembering, and the Calling I sent you took several tries and remained weak. Knowing intellectually that something is necessary is not the same as innate need, and I haven't yet managed to work out how to impress something less ... immediate ... on the fae." He hesitated. "If that is possible at all."

"Needs," Vryce mused. "I see." Then he turned sharp, almost accusing eyes on Tarrant. "What are you planning?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Gerald!"

"The rakh, Vryce. They have the knowledge we need. I'm sure you're well aware what's ahead for human civilisation here if we don't find a way to stem the tide, and quickly. Your nightmares say you are."

Vryce threw him another angry look at the reminder, but merely said, "I'd never have thought I'd see you acknowledge needing anything from the rakh."

It did cost him; of course Vryce was aware. But there was no use. What other option was there? He said so, and Vryce nodded again.

"The rakh have no reason to help us, though," he countered. "They'd probably be glad if we all died out. They hate us, Gerald, and you know it. With good reason, too."

All true, yet all irrelevant. They needed the knowledge. "Admittedly we can't just walk into the rakhlands and request the information we require," he conceded. "But neither can we afford to sit here and attempt to figure it out by trial and error if there's an alternative in reach. We simply don't have the time, and you're quite aware of that yourself."

Vryce clearly didn't appreciate being told what was on his own mind, but he was long accustomed to it by now, so he refrained even from token protest. "You have a plan, don't you?" he finally asked. "You always do."

And that was irritation and exasperation and faith all rolled into one; something still amazing to Tarrant.

"Indeed I do," he said calmly, rather than acknowledge it. "The lady Ciani will still be with them, I'm sure."

He could see understanding in Vryce at once.

"Her knowledge and her access to the rakh will be invaluable," he continued nonetheless. "Think, Vryce -"

"Do you think you could find your way to calling me by my given name one of these days?" Vryce interjected irritably. "God knows we've been through enough together to merit it."

Tarrant smiled. "Very well, if you insist."

"I do."

"Think, then, Damien. Imagine what we could do if we could learn to use the fae again. Imagine everything that might be prevented."

"You're the most irritating man I've ever known," Vryce complained. "Just like that, you want us to set out on another expedition. Unprepared, too."

It was a token protest, and Vryce knew it.

"Tied together by a mission again," Vryce muttered.

Tarrant stilled. He'd known Vryce would be receptive to the temptation of a new mission. He'd been floundering; he'd welcome a new purpose. And Tarrant had always known how to tempt him.

He could leave it at that; it was certainly the most convenient for him. But Vryce deserved better.

"Not ... quite."

Vryce looked at him askance.

"_We_ don't need to," he explained. "You could go on your own, if you preferred. We're not bound by any obligation, any larger threat - and you probably have as much chance of success with the lady Ciani without me as you do with me." It pained him to admit it, but it was the truth. This time, it wasn't Vryce who needed him. It was he who needed Vryce, to be able to make this expedition at all. "Remember I can't reveal myself to the lady. For her I'll be a stranger."

Most importantly, he owed it to Vryce not to tie him to Tarrant's dubious morality again.

Vryce merely looked at him for several moments.

Tarrant held himself very still. He knew the stiffness of his pose would give something away, but he couldn't seem to make himself unclench. This was unacceptable, he decided. He would have to get rid of this dependency.

"Oh, vulking hell," Vryce muttered at last, looking down at the polished wooden table. "Don't be _stupid_, Gerald. Of course we're both going."

Still Tarrant didn't relax. He couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling that Vryce felt _sorry_ for him, of all things.

Then Vryce threw him an incongruous grin. "I hope you didn't bring an appetite."

~*~

Damien stepped out of the cabin and onto the deck just as the ship left the safe harbour of Sattin, setting out towards the rakhlands. The sun and the Core were both out, the sky a rare bright azure blue mirrored by the sea, and the Canopy ahead a dome of fae so powerful it was visible to the naked eye, even if only in half-guessed distortions: the light breaking on something that vanished even as the rays scattered from it.

Tarrant stood at the rail, looking out at the Canopy, his long black hair tousled by the wind. Damien stopped for a moment to take in his posture. He seemed relaxed in the gleaming sunlight, almost content, as much as Tarrant was capable of that.

How far had they come since they'd first set out on a journey along much the same route?

Quietly he went to stand next to his companion, his comrade-in-arms for so many years now. His friend.

"Easier crossing this time," he muttered. Tarrant was human now, for one; his very existence wasn't endangered by the dome of fae.

Tarrant raised an eyebrow. It seemed to Damien that he smiled slightly, even without curving his lips; an expression so utterly familiar in its understatement that the changed features almost didn't matter.

"Just so, Damien," he agreed, equally quietly, and wry amusement sparkled in his eyes. "I certainly hope so."


End file.
